With JJ Abrams movie being a prequel and involving a whole new team, fans know that things are not going to look exactly like they did with The Original Series. One area of keen interest is the uniforms, especially the uniforms of the main cast worn on board the USS Enterprise, and today TrekMovie has some spoilage on just that.
[SPOILERS BELOW]

Red, Blue and Gold
For people who have been paying close attention to the various hints and comments from the cast, it should come as no surprise that the uniforms worn on board the Enterprise in the film follow the same color standard as the Original Series. The latest comment on this comes from the new James T. Kirk himself, Chris Pine, who confirmed with Hollywood Outbreak he would be wearing command gold. In the past Zoe Saldana (Uhura) has talked about her short skirt, and Anton Yelchin (Chekov) has also commented about how the crew will be wearing red, blue and gold. And the new Star Trek poster also gives some clues to the uniforms as well.

TrekMovie has talked about the uniforms with multiple sources and has confirmed that, just like on The Original Series, Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) will be wearing red as will other actors and extras in engineering, security and communications. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Bones (Karl Urban) will be we in Blue, as will others in science and medical. And Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin) will join Kirk (Pine) in command gold.

TrekMovie’s version of the new poster reveals clues to the new uniforms

New uniforms a nod to the originalAccording to TrekMovie sources, the Starfleet uniforms on the Enterprise are the element of this film closest to The Original Series in design. They are comprised of very dark grey (almost black) pants and boots for the men and mini skirts and boots for the women along with the previously mentioned shirts. For the women’s outfits, the mini-skirts are a bit longer than TOS and they have both short-sleeved and long-sleeved versions, and at least one female member of the crew will be wearing pants. The biggest difference with the tops is that they are comprised of two pieces, with a very dark grey (almost black) undershirt and the over shirt of the appropriate color, with a slight v-neck. The undershirt forms what looks like a black collar, similar to the TOS uniforms. As TrekMovie’s closer look at the new poster reveals (above), the colored uniform blouses have small ‘delta shield’ emblems woven into the fabric (this is most apparent on Saldana’s). Also, the shirt Chris Pine is wearing in the new poster appears to be uniform undershirt. Another change is the rank insignia which is said to be similar but more simplified in design. Lastly, the delta shield emblem is actually a pin instead of being sewn into the top, but still retains the department variations on the design. Regardless of the few differences, from a distance the new uniforms are almost indistinguishable from those of The Original Series.

Another important note, however, is that the main uniforms are only a portion of the overall wardrobe to be seen in the film. Most past films in the franchise have very little variety of wardrobe, but this new film has the biggest set of wardrobe of any Trek film, even more than Star Trek The Motion Picture. Many of the characters will be seen in both their Starfleet uniforms as well as civilian clothes. There are also Starfleet uniform variations including Academy uniforms, pressure suits, and apparently different versions of the Starfleet uniforms for some scenes set on another starship (see previous spoiler article).

So the bottom line is that on one hand the new Star Trek film will give a nod to TOS with a fairly close match, but on other hand provide a whole new set of new and interesting outfits to see our heroes save the galaxy in.

It was clear from James Cawley’s visit to the set and his comments afterward, that the uniforms would be very similar but not exact replicas of the ones seen in TOS. The two-piece uniform seems much more realistic, and I am not surprised to hear that the mini-skirts are a little bit longer and that the female officers and crewmembers have a trouser option (just like in today’s service-alpha uniforms in the US Armed Forces).

It’s going to be a bit more difficult for Kirk to get his chest exposed with a dark undershirt beneath his command gold, and Uhura will have to bend farther over for us to get a peek!!!

At least we will have some surprise left over with the alternate uniforms mentioned…

#5—“Ah well, I hope the uniforms aren’t ridiculously simple – it would clash with the idea of a “revamped futuristic looking ship / bridge”

Cool. The orginal series had very little variety in uniforms. This should be interesting to see if they’ll bring back TOS versions of Movie era uniforms such as the command Bomber jacket, the Rad Suits, and the field uniform/ jackets.

I’m glad to hear this and I’m also glad they are paying attention to detail in every area; wardrobe, starships, character likeness. Can’t wait to see this new implementation of new ideas to freshen it up as well.

Male Announcer: Welcome to the annual Enterprise Command Crew Lineup, where we show you ALL of this year’s hot new fashions. This year, we’ll be seeing what tight shirts and hot bods Starfleet has to offer Seventeen-Oh-One this year.

Female Announcer: Intriguing, isn’t it? We have a great lineup for our future staff. There’s all sorts of new faces coming in. We’ll be seeing a reprise of the traditional Red, Gold, and Blue for this season and—

Female Announcer: You said it! He is looking FINE!!!!111one Next up is Spock of Vulcan. You all know him. He’s been around with us with Captain Pike. His ears say “logic” but his face says “Hottie!” He is sporting the blue V-neck of science.

MA: Here’s Uhura, an eager young girl who majored in communications. I’ll give HER my number! She is sporting this year’s mini-skirt v-neck combo. And might I say she is looking FABULOUS! Mike to Uhura, you look great!

FA: Next in our line is our beloved doctor, Leo McCoy! Next to him is his trademark Prada Medical Tricorder. OW! Please state the nature of the medical emergency? I’m in LOVE! Scan my heart, cause when you get near, my blood pressure is 180/140! Though, theoretically with that, I should be dead.

MA: You mean you aren’t? *Gets slapped* Okay okay. Next we have McCoy’s assistant, the B-A-utiful Nurse Chapel. She’s toting her tricorder next to her, showing it off. She just transferred here recently, and she brings with her the blue version of the mini-skirt, v-neck combo. Marvelous, my dear!

FA: And last, but certainly not least, is our Chief Engineer, Monty Scott. He hails from the moors of Scotland to bring us lights and glamour every day. His dark grey pants, red shirt, and red hair are a striking and fierce combination. Warp Factor HOT on my command!

MA: That is our Enterprise Fashion Show for this year. Come back next year, when we have a whole new line of red shirts up to bat, because most of you won’t make it through the next fifteen minutes!

FA: I’ll say. You Reddies die off like flies!

[BOTH LAUGH]

MA: Well, goodnight everyone.

FA: We hope to see all of you again real soon. If you don’t die in some ridiculous way, that is.

Both: Tootles!
———
As you can see, I’ve NEVER worked in the fashion industry, nor do I plan to. I’m a doctor, dammit, not a—— *sniffs* I smell Gucci!

As a vintage clothing dealer and wardrobe collector, this is of special interest to me.

The idea of the black undershirt reminds me of the “Voyager”/”Deep Space Nine” era uniforms, with their grey undershirts, and of the “First Contact” style uniforms with the rank colored undershirts. This new design sounds very functional while still retaining the overall classic look. I hope the rest of the film follows suit (no pun intended).

I am very happy to hear this news. I am hoping that the cast finally gets pockets. I, for one, never understood having to strap everything you had to carry on a velcro belt. Either way, TOS fashions rule!

I’m excited to go back to a simplified world of Star Trek. Something about The Original Series made the universe seem bigger and humanity seem smaller. I like that. My favorite is Next Generation yet still I’m excited to shed all the baggage that TNG and its successors created. It’ll be a faster paced wild west adventure in space. I’m looking forward to that.

guess that could be explained away with the enterprise washing machine broke down that week so they had to break out some old uniforms in storage and wore them…then the wash machiones got fixed in time for Combomite Manouver..

Not that I will be disappointed in any way to see Zoe Saldana’s legs in a mini-skirt, but I wonder how they pull a mini and boots off without appearing campy and dated. Outside of the 1960’s fashion scene, it’s difficult to imagine a military or pseudo-military agency dressing their females like Nancy Sinatra.

A PIN?? The quest begins….
When they changed combadges, I became obsessed with finding/replicating one- just to be FIRST!! (Ah, geekdom.)
To me, NOTHING could be worse than season 1 & 2 of TNG. Nothing.

Longer mini-skirts? I remember an early episode of The Next Generation where they showed a male crew member in a bare legged maxi-shirt, that was just as short as the original show’s female outfits. Strangely, the look wasn’t adopted by the command personnel.

It’s like why Uhura touches her ear every 15 seconds. We can create starships that travel at thousands of times the speed of light, but we can’t create an earpiece that stays in while in use. It’s just a “go figure” situation. Though, you would’ve thought that they’d have figured out something other than Velcro to use in the future. But that’s just my 9 cents (accounting for inflation).

23. No offense, but it’s called a Pilot. These are shows that work out the bugs, and boy, there are plenty of ’em when you have to invent a whole new universe. You create a drama that you hope will sell, then you have to make it workable. In the mid-60’s, color television was just being introduced. That’s the reason Star Trek went psychedelic, plain and simple.
Plus, it just looks better

#15—“So a shirt and an undershirt is more realistic than a shirt with a collar.

I don’t see why.”

Then you have obviously never served in the military, or if you have, you’ve obviously forgotten what it is like to wear a uniform in everyday practical situations.
As a combat veteran former US Marine who has served “actively’ in uniform on more occasions than I could count, trust me…It just is. It is better for the body temperature (in the heat and the cold) and keeps the outer shirt from being soiled in perspiration, which is unnecessarily unsightly and simply less comfortable in situations where the person in question is exposed to the elements, and also keeps the skin on the torso less exposed to coarse earth (like sand, for instance)one might come in contact with on the ground.

joking aside i remember reading an atricle or interview around the time of the original crew films where the costume designer or whoever was talking about the movie uniforms for TMP/TWOK and said something like ‘obviously we couldnt have them dashing around in the colourful tv uniforms on the big screen as although they looked great on tv theyd look outrageous on the big screen’

What was the purpose? For continuity’s sake, it makes no sense, considering the former color scheme was well known. For storytelling sake, wouldn’t it have been a difficult transition day for servicemembers? So was it deliberate? An accident? Artistic reasons? Star demand?

16 – are you joking? TOM (the original movies) red uniforms were great!

29 – the uniforms described here sound virtually identical to TOS ones bar a few changes (badge, collar etc) only a big fan would notice…anyway whos to say the red/blue/gold uniforms wernt slightly different just prior to TOS 5 year mission…theres always been lots of minor and major differences in the uniforms througout all incarnations of trek…(e.g. TNG – 1st/2nd seson one piece suit….then the 3rd-7th season two piece…then they wore the DS9/Voy style for Generations – but all were the same basic design of the red/blue/gold)

#32 — I’m glad someone with knowledge of the military is contributing and enlightening the rest. Thanks! And to the rest of you: think before you post. I can’t believe I’m even in the same room with you.

I am wondering though, I heard this was to take place between “The Cage” and “Where no Man has Gone Before.” But in WNHGB, weren’t they still wearing the uniforms that were worn in “The Cage?” THey didn’t start wearing the more traditional uniforms until “The Corbomite Maneuver.” And I am going by Production order, not airing order. I don’t know why it was aired in such a manner, but it made no sense that way.

It looks to me like, starting with DS9, the blue science medical uniforms turned green. Kind of a blue green, but definitely more green than blue. They look much different than say, Dr. Crusher’s uniform in TNG. Am I color blind, or am I right???????

I think the reason for the color switch lies in the TWOK movie era uniforms. As those were primarily red, it seems like they continued with red as command and had to switch mustard/yellow to Ship Services.

What was the purpose? For continuity’s sake, it makes no sense, considering the former color scheme was well known. For storytelling sake, wouldn’t it have been a difficult transition day for servicemembers? So was it deliberate? An accident? Artistic reasons? Star demand?

It was probably some Red Shirt conspiracy. You remember how it was always the crewman in the red shirts to die ithe landing parties. Hey I have an idea lets swap shirts with the captain and comman crew!

Ugh. Stilletos during Red Alert would be a nightmare! I’ve never worn high-heels, but I can guess by the way my friends complain about them that it’d be tough. I mean… you’d have to run through the halls, through the lifts, and to your station in a matter of minutes. You do NOT want heels for that.

TOS#51- Although, when the ship is being pummeled by badguy torpedo fire, it would prove asthetically-pleasing to see the female yeomen rolling around on the bridge with their stiletto-heeled boots up in the air…

Okay, on the topic of the color change between TOS and TNG. You forget that the uniform color scheme had changed by TMP. The movie era uniforms actually had a very confusing color scheme. TMP had five different color uniforms which were so drab that you almost couldn’t tell the difference. TWOK through TUC had as many as ten different colors, but all on the under shirt.

When returning to the simpler 3 color scheme for TNG, I have no idea what the reason was. I’m just guessing it’s for asthetics. Theiss (who also designed the original uniforms) probably just felt that certain actors looked better in certain colors.

One question that always occurs to me is that in ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ George Takei appears as a scientist type character in a red shirt (not in the gold-shirted Helmsman position for which he has become famous). Am I to assume that George was not playing Sulu in this episode? I think that I’ve watched enough Star trek to know that there is no ‘canon’ explanatiion for this. Or is there and I’ve just missed it along the way :)

59 – I don’t believe he was in red.. I think all teh uniforms were the same color for that episode. And he did play Sulu.. he was a scientist then and switched to helm. It was explained somewhere, I don’t remember when. But if you recall, he did have a love of botany which was shone in Charlie X I believe.

The shirts were two-pice in the first season I believe. In “The Man Trap”, McCoy is seen wearing his black shirt only as he’s trying to rest in his quarters, and I can swear there’s a scene of Spock in sickbay with only the black shirt on. I believe they went to a one-piece later with a collar because it was neater (the “v” wouldn’t shift around). I’ll bet it was cooler under those studio lights as well.

39. I guess what I’m trying to say is since there are going to be differences, albeit slight, is the movie simply going to gloss over them like they never happened? What other “changes” will they be glossing over?

I for one loved the original uniforms the best. I guess it’s like a first love, you never forget the one the captured you in the first place. They are so classic and heroic looking. Nothing cheesy about them in my opinion.

Well, we haven’t seen the colors of the new TOS-style uniforms yet. The full-color pictures have been Photoshopped, as Anthony explained when he posted them.

The main reason that TNG used dark red for command was that red is a more flattering color on most people than green or mustard yellow or gold. The producers and costumers wanted the stars of the show to look their best.

Interesting take on the TOS uniforms, it should be interesting. The only drawback will probably be keeping them neat looking after fight scenes (if any). The actors will have to learn the “Picard maneuver” — the shirt pull, not the Stargazer move.

The uniform colors in my Photoshopping were derived from the overall color tints of the teaser images. In Kirk’s case, as has been noted, I did not color his shirt gold, as the texture of his shirt body matched the texture of his shirt’s collar – for the images of both Spock and Uhura it was clear that the collar fabric texture was different from that of the remainder of the shirt.

My guess at another reason for Command personnel wearing red on TNG: The TNG Enterprise sets were beiges, tans and greys with black computer screens/panels… TNG command red stands out strongly against this color scheme, while TNG gold blends in…. so from an art design perspective, it makes sense to have Command personnel pop out form the backgrounds, and let some of the other disciplines blend in more.

#42—You are absolutely correct about the pilot-era uniforms. However, I think the decision to avoid the “trial and error” wardrobe choices of the pilot episodes would be a wise use of creative license on the part of Bad Robot. Who but the type of geeks who would spend time here discussing the subject would even understand why they had that stuff on? Most casual moviegoers, who would at best be casually familiar with TOS uniforms, would probably wonder what the heck that was about.

Going with the general look of the much more recognizable uniforms would be a smart move, IMO…

Then again, who is to say that the WNMHGB era is even visited at all? We may never see Kirk actually in command of the Enterprise until after the events on Delta Vega (immediately after which we see the more familiar look).

Finally, here is an important line from the above article:

“Another important note, however, is that the main uniforms are only a portion of the overall wardrobe to be seen in the film.”

The article goes on to say that this film has the biggest wardrobe of any previous Trek film. Who knows what we will see?

This may have been mentioned, but TOS had two-layered tops as well. I am thinking of an episode where Spock has a medical appointment and is shown putting his blue tunic back on over his black t-shirt.

I wonder if the pins will be communicators? I doubt it, as this would be negate the iconic communicators ordinarily used.

The lengthened mini-skirts clearly are an homage to the past without showing 23rd century panties like some trampy yeomans wore in the original series. The inclusion of a woman with pants is gesture to changing fashion/gender perceptions, much as the ridiculous man-skirt briefly shown in the Farpoint TNG pilot.

Really guys, just think about uniform ‘continuity’ for a moment–it doesn’t exist in Trek. The bold colors were intended to highlight color television at the time, and the number of changes since were usually based on highlighting characters rather than a concern for continuity. They f*cked around with the uniforms in every series and film–think Batman costume changes. Eventually, these changes come to be expected and appreciated.

So my gut reaction (also known as a knee-jerk reaction in this case) is to feel annoyed that it would seem that they are annoying the canon. I mean, from what I’ve seen, the Enterprise looks nothing like it did in “The Cage” or “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. I really hope this is a parallel reality or something, because the costumes aren’t matching up either. I’m sorry, I’m just wired this way. I want to like it a lot. I really do. But I don’t see it happening at this point. PLease let it be a parallel reality! I don’t care if Nimoy IS in it, I will ignore everything after this movie if they erase my canon. I’ve suffered enough bs with Voyager getting crap wrong. Enterprise I can accept, but this? I’m not so sure. I still anticipate the trailer. I’ll be watching until it’s clear that they’re raping my childhood.

#92—What you need to understand is that pilot episodes are more or less “trial runs”. They were obviously unhappy with the way the actors looked in those outfits, and felt that what they ultimately ended up wearing was much better.

I love “The Cage” and “WNMHGB”, but if Bad Robot wisely chooses to exercise a bit of creative license in using the more familiar style, it is certainly nothing I would dwell on. It is not as if they forgot to make Spck half-human!

If you can get over Gary Mitchell appearing as the navigator and the helmsman in the same episode, or Khan telling Terrell and Checkov that 200 years ago he was a Prince…with power over millions (despite te film opening with “In the 23rd Century”), then surely you can get over that.

# 94 –Oh, I do understand that. It does bother me that Gary Mitchell isn’t in it, but I think the bridge crew should be trained to handle all stations on the bridge to some degree. As for Kahn. Well. Poor Kahn. The canon errors do bother me, I suppose. A lot. I’m also annoyed by the glaring canon errors in TOS. -shrugs- eh, just a tv show, I guess. I wish they’d at least attempt doing it right, though. And by the way, pilot or no, The Cage was made canon by its inclusion in “The Menagerie”. Just saying.

Just to respond to everyone who thinks that the shirts from TOS were two parters originally…

While Spock wore a black undershirt beneath his shirt, and McCoy did under his ‘scrub’ shirt, a close look at any and all of the TOS uniforms will show that the original black collar was a part of the shirt itself. Notice on the actor’s left hand sides, the zipper is there, and it goes right up the side of the black portion of the collar… on everyone’s neck.

They are most obvious in the early episodes (you can see the white interfacing inside Sulu’s collar in TCM) and, while they get better, one can always look closely and find them, even in season three. The most obvious zipper is on Kirk’s tunic in The Naked Time… there you can see the zipper (on the tunic without the insignia, as I recall) going all the way down to mid-gut on the actor’s left side, following the seam.

I know some will still expect absolute faithfulness and count the hairs on Quinto’s bangs and compare them with Nimoy’s and find him non-canon, but please… let’s not get freaked over some of this stuff. It’s still just a movie.

Whenever justifying the various uniform designs, I think of the “Horatio Hornblower” aspect that Roddenberry often mentioned as being so influential to his original visions. (Obviously not lost on William Ware Theiss.) I’ve always pictured Star Fleet portraying itself with a slightly gaudy, over-the-top swagger, like naval officers of old. Even the “practical” TOS uniforms had those bell flares on the pants. Miniskirts on female crew members could reflect a “retro” sense of aesthetics that could be “fashionable” in a future where military/exploratory space vessels are long accustomed to artificial gravity and “graviton stabilizers.” (This was always reinforced for me by Dax’s comments in DS9, “Trials & Tribble-ations” waxing sentimental about the “old style designs.”) I can relate to the comments pointing out how TOS made the galaxy seem so much larger and mysterious, but I also see a Star Fleet that is a bit cock-sure; perhaps too much at times, which makes for some great story-lines in TOS.

I thought the “new” uniforms introduced in TWOK were actually a bit excessive on the “Hornblower scale.” They look cool, but never seemed right as successors to TOS uniforms *or* predecessors to those in TNG. So far, I’m inspired by what I’m hearing about the new Trek Movie uniforms. It sounds like they’re trying to make sense in melding the old and new styles together.

Okay… Can’t Believe I’m Doing this, but I kinda took TrekMovie’s Retouched poster, and Jazzed it up some More. if You wanna check it out go here…..http://the-last-maquis.deviantart.com/….oh and #54. Denise, it Sooo would.

#99—Actually, no. I am expecting Mitchell to be the “mystery character” which Paul McGillion was cast to portray. We’ll see.

The “Supreme Court” of STXI cited “WNMHGB” (along with several other episodes) as specific research in preparation for the making of this film, so they are obviously aware of the role he plays in Trek canon.

Bob Orci told me right here on this site that—“Anything which appears to violate canon will have a canon explanation.”

I interpret that as meaning that if Gary Mitchell is absent from the story, it will be for good reason. Perhaps the film does not cover his time as a student in Lt. Kirk’s class, or Kirk’s command of the Enterprise prior to the events on Delta Vega.

Orci said that said that anything that violates canon will have a canon explanation?!? Why didn’t anyone say so earlier? I love LOST, and I love these guys. I trust that. I can’t wait for this movie now. Seriously, I really did just change my mind that fast. I’m not even joking. Hahaha. BRING IT ON!

From the article: “Also, the shirt Chris Pine is wearing in the new poster appears to be uniform undershirt. ”

But, it clearly looks different from the portion of the undershirt visible in the pic of Spock. Spock’s undershirt is more turtle-neck-ish than Kirk’s, which frankly looks like a run-of-the-mill T-shirt, even a little on the slouchy side. I think they could have wowed us a little more in the new posters with regard to Kirk.

The uniforms sound good and I’m looking forward to seeing them and all the other uniform variants in the film. I like how they’re staying close to the TOS uniform for the Enterprise crew and it should be interesting to see what JJ Abrams version of 23rd Century civilian clothing looks like. Every time I read something about this movie the more excited I am to see it. May 2009 is going to be a good month for Trek.

It’s cool to hear the uniform info. I like it that they are using the old stuff for the main source, but making slight changes so that they don’t look so…..1960s.

I also like to hear that they will be in their civilian clothes too. I hope they don’t make the civilian clothes look too out there.

The thing is, even though it was like the third show, the episode–the one with Gary Mitchell shows the crewand they are wearing uniforms like what Pike and his crew wore. And Spock wore Gold, and Scotty did too. And Sulu wore blue. And the shirts were more like pull over sweat shirts with zippers on the shoulder and the neck was not black. To be honest, the uniforms that Pike and his crew wore in The Cage always looked like they weren’t trying to fit the time period in which the show was filmed (the 1960s).

I’m not sure why people are saying no one wore undershirts in the original series… they did. This is especially apparent when they carry wounded crewman and you see their shirts ride up, exposing the closure of the trousers and a black t-shirt and in “The Naked Time” when Spock is examined. The only exception seems to be Kirk, of course, but they were mining the sex appeal there.

I don’t really like the idea of the undershirt being the black collar of the tunic, personally.

#16
I’m sure I’ve read that the original plan was to keep the command staff in gold. But they felt that Data’s make up didn’t work with the red uniform he would have been wearing and switching red and gold solved the problem.

I’ve allways defended that the black collar intended to be an undershirt and everyone thought I was crazy.

I Like the idea of the Delta Pins because it will be easier to add them to a home made costume (no sewing :-) ), but the new fabric for the main shirt with the deltas will turn any attempt at making a home made uniform a hell.

All I know, is that when I went in for my costume fitting at Paramount their wardrobe dept was filled with costumes for the movie, racks and racks in the Edith Head building .It will be a high quality film, production-wise because you could tell from the racks of specialized clothing and the kinds of materials. But, the first outfit I tried on was very uncomfortable (wont say what kind it was but, lets just say, it will be in the movie alot) and the second one was more ‘me’ anyway! I wont say more because I signed pages of confidentiality paperwork, But, I did get a check for $13.25 at least! (after taxes!LOL! ) It is from the production ‘Corporate Headquarters’ LOL and I will keep it on my wall! They ended up not using me (hate to think how much $ was wasted on extras who went through everything and then they ended up not using them) but, maybe I will be on the special edition DVD with the featurette for costumes or something! Also, afterwards I did get lost at Paramount the rest of the day! It was cool, seeing where ‘Piece of the action’ and a whole bunch of episodes from all the eras were filmed, and seeing the whale tank a.k.a. the parking lot with the blue backdrop used in ST. IV was cool and seeing where Lucy had her bungalow in the Desilu days and seeing where Star Trek has been filmed all these years (Before I went, I printed up a stage by stage usage from TOS-ENT ST 1-10 from memory alpha) So, though I didnt get into the movie my time was not wasted! Another trekkers dream came true, thanks to J.J.!

– I don’t want to be acid in thinking , but i prefer indigo ..(not deep blue or other coloure)..
The original Starfleet uniforms are more suitable for a comedy movie..
I observe a continouse distruction of the best thigs achieved from S.T in the last decades..like indigo colour of the uniforms..more official uniforms, modern ships , modern worlds , modern way of thinking..the best alien races from trek are distroyed..for example romulans.. and maybe klingons..sincerely i believe that this movie should be a remake , not a prequel or a sequel …just for the good of the saga’s past
By the way..this movie poster reminds me about the original ” CHARLIE’S ANGELS ” series ..it looks so optimistic..but this is a good thing..isn’t it..?..
S.T. is old..not gothic..

No, in the Original Series the shirts were one-piece with ribbed collars. Anybody who ever ordered a shirt pattern from Lincoln Enterprises in the 1970s knows that’s the truth. And William Ware Theiss (the designer of the original costumes) had some comments about invisible zippers in the book “The Making of Star Trek” by Stephen Whitfield.

Not so sure if I like the little starfleet symbols in the fabric ala Superman Rechurns: hopefully that is the only idea they took from that movie. >;>}
And it looks like they found a way to make the uniforms more similar to TWOK etc. but still keep the original look.
Hopefully they will be as faithful to the look of the sets and of Enterprise (he typed, hoping against hope). >;>}

This sounds great. I can’t wait to see an official pic of the whole uniform. I prefer the original uniforms from TOS. I’m glad they are staying away from a one piece uniform. And thank God they are not going to look like the awful red and black “Love Boat” uniforms that started in the ST TWOK movie.

“I’ve allways defended that the black collar intended to be an undershirt and everyone thought I was crazy.”

It always looked to me like they were _going for_ an undershirt-overshirt look, but on the cheap, by tacking a ribbed contrast collar onto the colored tunic. And in some cases, I DO mean “tacking.” And not just on the bit players – there were times I could see basting stitches on both Spock’s and McCoy’s collars.

I always wondered why Nurse Chapel’s dress didn’t have a black collar like the other female officers’. I wonder if that’s the equivalent of McCoy’s docsmock top.

I hope they go for opaque tights for the ladies – I always thought the sheer black stockings looked a bit silly.

About the mini skirts: The setting is over 200 years in the future! Think about naval uniforms around the year 1800, like in Master and Commander. To those people it would have been inconceivable to have naval officer uniforms without white frill shirts, buttoned vests and coats with huge brass buttons, and of course a huge hat. So how should we know that space naval uniforms wouldn’t include miniskirts in the year 2250?

When this reboot was first announced as re-using the established TOS characters for it’s premise, I must admit that I hoped the makers would give us a bridge crew that wore something approximating the original uniforms, without some radical departure from their overall look and colour…. Thankfully this seems to have been the case. Although to be picky, I’d have preferred an ‘attached’ black collar for the crew’s tunic tops, I am at least delighted that it is now confirmed that the ‘slight v-neck’ effect with be included in some, as this was a small but hoped for detail I wanted.

Count me content so far, although I hope for that ‘all-important’ slight ‘flaring’ on the bottom of ‘pocketless’ trousers too…. ;)

I guess my question is why have canon if it’s not respected? You either honor canon or you don’t. If the uniforms can be “tweaked” for a movie that’s supposedly taking a historical take on things in the past then why did they bother to exactly reproduce the uniforms in DS9’s “Trials and Tribblations” or ENT “In a Mirror Darkly”? It makes no sense to honor canon sometimes and not others. It results in a discombobulated body of work. The rank insignia will be “simplified”. What does that mean? Four pips on the collar for Captain?

Where did you get the idea that canon is some immutable law of the universe? It’s not. It’s a series of decisions made by the creators of a television series franchise over a period of some forty years.

Some of those decisions were made with at eye to creating a believable, consistant fiction, sure; just as many of them, if not the overwhelming bulk of them, were made in accordance with the demands of television and movie production, budgets, availabilities, and just plain accidents. None of this is Holy Writ, my friend; and it is foolish to act like it is or believe that it should be,

160. Canon is honored or it isn’t. This movie is a reboot or it isn’t, What’s so foolish about that concept? Don’t sell us on something it isn’t. Call it for what it is. I’m going to see this movie no matter what, however I will walk away very disappointed if there are “differences” that aren’t explained in the story, such as an alternatve universe or alternate timeline.

Seems like a best case scenario for a reinterpretation of the classic uniforms. I’m not sure that they wouldn’t have been better off with an entirely new design, as the canonistas will never be satisfied in any case, but i always liked the bold simplicity of the classic look.

Although, judging by the Spock picture up above, it doesn’t seem rank pips are being used. I think they’ll have the single solid band on the sleeves that was seen in The Cage outfits- not the numerous solid and broken braids used to denote rank that was used in the series.

I think a better idea for this movie would be to set it 40 years after Next Gen. New characters, new stories, no canon problems. Then say, like how so many old fashions always come back in style, that Starfleet decided to go back to its “roots” and therefore a uniform change with a retro look. That would explain the uniforms looking similar but slightly different. Starfleet could also go back to retro looking ships but updated with new technology. This would open up a whole new avenue for stories and adventures. Heck, you could even have the characters be decendants of the TOS crew.

From what it sounds like, this movie ends with them embarking on their 5-year mission. Does that mean future sequals will be reinterpretations of episodes we’ve already seen? Will they be adventures from the last 2 years of the mission we haven’t seen? They have a story constriction. Oops, I forgot, canon isn’t important. They can rewrite the entire 5-year mission as though the series never happened. How stupid and anal of me.

There is WAY too much talk of observing canon to the n’th degree. That was my problem with the later series in the Star Trek franchise. They were so hung up on canon, that they forgot the story. TOS was all about the story.
Here’s hoping that JJ and team hold true to the basics, but I’m really hoping that we get one kick a@@ story.

One thing we’ve seen over the course of almost every show (and series of movies) is that Starfleet changes its uniform design every so often. Since this film takes place before the five-year mission, it really doesn’t interfere or conflict with canon in the sartorial department. At some point between when this movie ends and when TOS starts, the fleet adopts new uniforms. Simple as that.

Does anyone else remember the short-lived Babylon 5 spinoff Crusade? I remember one episode where they had a clothing designer on the ship doing research for new uniforms. Hijinks ensued, if I remember rightly.

A reboot wouldn’t disappointment, if when I’m going to see the movie I know in advance it is a reboot and to throw out everything that has come before. Just don’t insult my intelligence and say a cute thing like it’s a “reimagining” or “reinterpretation” and will be honoring canon then go see the movie and everything is different. I can’t figure out why J.J. and the writers and producers are so fearful of the word “reboot”.

As the non-Turtlehead Klingons were wearing silver vests at around the time of this prequel, perhaps Finnegan’s silver shirt was given to cadets as a form of humiliation. It marked them out as probationers or something.

TMP was a reboot of the entire series…
TWOK and forward were reboots of the reboot.
Every series was a reboot.

For everyone so worried about canon, if you dissect every episode you will see that there was very little attention paid to continuity. And that goes into all te movies as well. the biggest was with Khan regognized Chekov. And the fact that Kirk had a son.. hey, that was never mentioned in TOS.. neither was Scotty having a sister!

182. 183. 184. The concept of time eludes you. Let me break this down so you can comprehend. In a series, time passes. That is the series in the 60’s came before the movies of the ’70’s and ’80’s and series in the ’90’s. Therefore, when the movies came along 15 years later, it really was 15 years later in the canon of the Star Trek. Things can get updated within the confines of canon. Kirk can have a son, uniforms get updated, etc. The ridges on the Klingons was the Klingons in TOS were a genetically altered human hybrid. The Klingons in the movies and TNG are the pure version. When a 40 year old series goes back in time, you are essentially going back in the history of what’s been established, uniforms, ships, characters, places, events, etc. Unless something like an alternate timeline or alternate universe is established, the events are historical.

Since Star Trek is marketed as the “history of the future” the franchise is more relegated to the confines of canon, accuracy, continuity and details. A franchise like Batman, who cares, it’s comic book fantasy. Star Trek is promoted in the upcoming trailer airs clips of man’s Apollo and Mercury programs, as though, Star Trek is an extension of reality, of the real universe that we know, as opposed to a fantasy world of the force and lightsabers such as Star Wars. Sorry folks I don’t make the rules, and I didn’t make up the marketing plan of the movie. I am just here observing.

I am pleased to hear about Deltas in the fabric, I wanted them to be like that, like the spider-man and new superman costume. I thought it could add a little something to the old uni’s and make them look good. Good news!

#186-You are SOOOOOO right!!! I haven’t posted anything in a while. But early on I have screaming for all of the items that you covered in #186 and #187. Of course Kirk can have a son, remember “the little blonde lab assistant” — that Gary Mitchell mentioned to Kirk, Kirk’s reply was “I almost married her…..”, who is to say that was not Carol Marcus????
Keep up the good work John From Cincinnati!!!!!!

186- I comprehend just fine thank you. The only example you addressed in my comment was the Klingon ridges, which I already stated as being explained later.

BTW it was never intended to be explained until ” Trials and Tribble-ations” Where attention was brought to it and old style Klingons were seen next to the DS9 crew. Prior to that it was simply accepted that Klingons changed b/c the budget was now better than TOS.

I’ll reiterate for you-

“All Good Things” did not perfectly recreate the bridge from “Encounter at Farpoint” which indeed involved going back in time.

Picard’s flashback in “First Contact” did not show an exact recreation of Locutus from “The Best of Both Worlds.” The Borg make-up as been extremely enhanced due to both budget and for the big screen.

In TOS the old model of the Enterprise is seen in the same episodes as the newer model. Usually at the end of the episode. Does that mean that they just rebooted and that episode never happened?

John … they never stated every single day of the 40 years. Fact is, we don’t know the time span between Pike’s time and Kirk’s first time commanding. We don’t even know how long of a time period between WNMHGB and the other episides. What i am trying to say is this… this movie takes place at different time periods. One may be when kirk is in the academy.. one may be after the whole Gary mitchell thing. In between there has been several changes to the uniform. Who is to say that this one didn’t exist? Who’s to say that the events in this movie didn’t take place? Not me.. not you.. it’s all conjecture.

you cannot have this movie look EXACTLY like the tv series did in the 60’s. This is being done for film and not for 60’s TV. Do you know how crappy this would look if they shot exactly like they did in the 60s? I appreciate the fine details they are paying to the uniform and such.

Again we aren’t talking about PERFECT and EXACT recreations. We aren’t even talking about SLIGHT differences to account for modern day production values. I certainly would HOPE they would make the bridge look like it’s made out of Titanium and not cardboard. I would hope the aliens look more realistic than purple and green pipe cleaners as in “Catspaw”. They are certainly talking about significant changes, when you look at the hallway from the Enterprise, it certainly looks like a hallway from one of the movie Enterprises, or the uniforms being two-piece, a metal insignia and “simpler” rank insignia. Yes, they will look “better” but will they also look different enough for people to scratch their heads and say “where did all this come from”? We don’t know the story yet, we don’t know the exact time (s) it will be taking place.

John from Cincinatti
for someone who has moved on you sure post, you are really bordering on spamming now. I think people get it

and to everyone, I will repeat something I said on Mark Altman’s Star Trek Panel from last week at Comic Con:
If you go to this film and view it through the prism of ‘what is different’ you are guaranteed to be disappointed and you may miss a really fun exciting Star Trek film

Personally I am going to go to this movie and try and watch it as a summer blockbuster action movie set in the Star Trek universe. I will judge it firstly on if it is an entertaining film and does it ‘feel’ like Star Trek.

I will then watch it again a couple of times and try and both find all the continuity nuggets and play the nitpicker’s game, both of which are very much secondary to the effectiveness of a film from my point of view. They aren’t turning Spock into a asian killer robot, they aren’t putting the Borg into the Federation or doing anything like that. THings are going to look different, with the uniforms being the least of the differences. And when your are making a big budget 2009 movie, that is to be expected and something to look forward to instead of fear.

Most of the stuff your nitpicking over is minute at best. Very few people know that there was a hidden zipper running down one side of hose seams. And just b/c the costumes were one peice, does not mean that the uniforms were. Using more simple braids? Most people couldn’t tell you what those braids looked like other than the fact that they were stripes on the forearm that signified rank.

All of that is the stuff that has been discovered by the exhaustive research of costumers. This stuff involved researching old photos, interviews and even finding the original costumes themselves.

Was Kirk’s tunic green or gold? You’ll still find people debating this one.

All I’m saying is that I’m reserving judgement until I see something. If it doesn’t look enough like TOS I’ll say something then.

“Was Kirk’s tunic green or gold? You’ll still find people debating this one.”

I have original pieces of the fabric from the Paramount Vault, which I purchased a number of years ago and are certified from Parmount (nice wall hangings!) Anyway, I have 1 blue swatch and 1 greenish yellow swatch, I need to pull them out and look at them again (I have been moving) But, the it was a light green color and looks yellow if you have 100 watt lights on it, it looks washed out. Also, the pics on the first 10 gold key comics had file photos and Kirk’s outfit is clearly light greenish. And I saw a complete uniform about 13 years ago at the Grand Slam in Pasadena and in my pics. it looks more green than yellow. So, that debate is closed in my opinion!

“My guess at another reason for Command personnel wearing red on TNG: The TNG Enterprise sets were beiges, tans and greys with black computer screens/panels… TNG command red stands out strongly against this color scheme, while TNG gold blends in…. so from an art design perspective, it makes sense to have Command personnel pop out form the backgrounds, and let some of the other disciplines blend in more.”

…BINGO! Not many people get this today, but back in 1965 when the series was being developed, this was a *very* important consideration. It’s also half of why there was such a drastic change in color intensity in the tunics after the 2nd pilot – there wasn’t enough differentiation between the “gold” and “red” tunics on a B&W TV as there should have been. Add to this the fact that Color TV was still essentially too new and expensive for many families to buy unless they had a really good incentive with regards to what was available to watch. The more colors, the better the push for the post-nuclear family to splurge a bit.

“Was Kirk’s tunic green or gold? You’ll still find people debating this one.”

…Yep, and while the official reason for the green vellour looking gold has a lot of real-life technobabble behind it – essentially the film stock being used having a specific response to specific colors that didn’t quite match up but nobody gave a frack as long as the skin tones weren’t affected – but there were several gold tunics made during the third season that *were* actually gold in color. I’ve actually seen and felt two of these, both of which were validated by Bill Theiss, as well as one of the “belly wrap” tunic prototypes that was made but I *think* was never used – light gold with an engineering arrowhead for the “buckle”. The collector who had these said Theiss had noted the color change caused by the lighting and the film stock, and decided it was simple just to start making gold tunics instead of the light “lime” green ones. Note also that the “tummy wrap” that Shatner wore was actually about a shade darker than it appeared on the screen.

“If you can get over Gary Mitchell appearing as the navigator and the helmsman in the same episode…”

…This is where most people misunderstand the dialog in the scene that causes this. If you read the shooting script, Mitchell gets zapped, falls out of his chair, and Kelso starts to jump up to render aid. Kirk is not yelling “helmsman!” at Mitchell, but at Kelso to bring him back to attention and remain at his post. The misunderstanding is understandable, as that scene is a) a bit chaotic, and b) not as tightly edited so as to prevent confusions such as this one.

“I think the question is WHY did the producers do the gold/red switch? “

…One reason, and one reason alone: Gene *and* Bob Justman’s desires to at least attempt to put the redshirt jokes to rest. Both have gone on record on this, and IIRC the one who broke this was Rich Kolker back on rec.arts.startrek a few months before TNG premiered. Rich had apparently did some inquiring when the first bootleg “Writers’ Guide” started getting circulated, and people on r.a.startrek(*) were wondering if the uniform colors listed in the Guide were a typo.

(*) This was before the big group breakup, kids.

“The shirts were two-pice in the first season I believe. In “The Man Trap”…”

…The two-piece “tunic and t-shirt” were only used for the “hero” or close-up uniforms for two or three episodes. Bill Theiss went to the one-piece ones to a) save money, and b) address cast complaints that wearing *two* pieces of vellour under the hot lights were just too uncomfortable. They were pretty much gone by Man Trap, although they turned up from time to time on background crewmen who weren’t in close-up shots.

…Note that Theiss had similar issues with the original TNG uniforms, but the problem was that the one-piece jumpsuits were causing the male cast members to deliver their lines soprano unless standing up straight, and the solution was to alter them to two-piece ones.

“The orginal series had very little variety in uniforms.

…Good place to bring this up, I suppose. The original plan for TMP was to have a couple of extra colors for the tunics – white for medical, black for security, and a forest green for some division I honestly can’t recall right now. It had actually been De Kelley who’d asked way back during TOS why the medical staff didn’t wear white or a light green like doctors *still* generally do almost a half-century after TOS was conceived. However, that was all concocted for Phase II, and when Robert Wise was brought onboard to direct TMP, he decided to go with a more “minimalist” approach to colors than the original designed-for-TV sets and costumes would have called for. I’ve read his explanations for his decision before, but the one that sums it up best is that he felt that bright colors – redshirts and turbolift doors – that would call attention to all the action on a small screen would be a complete distraction on the big ones. The “big red barn” effect, I believe he called it once. IIRC, he also used the visual singlechromatic nature of the Andromeda Strain sets as proof of his method despite many fans pointing out just how LOUDLY RED Wildfire’s first level was.

…Note that any real used of “wild” colors were restricted to anything that was “alien”, whether it be the background aliens seen in the San Francisco shuttle landing shot, or for V’Ger itself.

“I think a better idea for this movie would be to set it 40 years after Next Gen. “

…Yeah, right. And the fangeeks would still be whining about Shatner not having a role in it :-P :-P :-P

“Stilletos during Red Alert would be a nightmare! “

…Yeah, but during a raid by a Klingon prize capture party, they could come in handy :-)

<I<“As a combat veteran former US Marine who has served “actively’ in uniform on more occasions than I could count, trust me..”

…But it covers up those ball-and-anchor tattoos and hairy chests you Jarheads love to show off! :-P

“Longer mini-skirts? I remember an early episode of The Next Generation where they showed a male crew member in a bare legged maxi-shirt, that was just as short as the original show’s female outfits. “

…That was Theiss’ interpretation of Gene’s suggestion for a “unisex” uniform that had a skirt instead of pants that either males or femals cold wear. It got a rather ridiculed reception when they were seen in Encounter at Farpoint, and when all of the male cast members refused to wear them, they were dropped. ISTR they showed up a few times during the first season in background shots, but they were reportedly recycled into alien costumes after that initial season.

“Star Trek is promoted in the upcoming trailer airs clips of man’s Apollo and Mercury programs…”

…One of the things that always irked me about the TNG era and the use of the holodecks is that we didn’t have a scene where one of the main cast is recreating John Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight, and in the middle of a manual reentry with the retro pack on, is forced to abort the sim because he/she’s been called to the bridge. The punch line being “dammit! Every time I’m just about to get through reentry, something always comes up!” At least one of the command crew should have been a major Astrobuff as a perpetual homage to NASA and the space program.

Okay, it’s time for someone who saw TOS first-run to chime in. Season 1 and two used cheap velour uniforms that shrank and faded after each cleaning. They had to sew on the braid and shield every time they came back from cleaning. Watch Kirk’s evil twin return to the Enterprise without a shield on his shirt (costumer boo boo). Season three saw the fabric of the shirts and pants change as POLYESTER technology improved (for you children, it was a new thing in the sixties). Every episode will show detail changes in the braid spacing and and the shield location because continuity in TV without daily taping was a VERY DIFFICULT thing. I have seen several of these costumes up close, and the only tunics that were green were Kirk’s wraparounds. Early color TV, as I remember well, was Gunsmoke and Star Trek . Early color TV filming failed to pick up certain color nuances, as can be seen of every episode. Let’s put this to rest.

The miniskirts and go go boots reflected the times, and I still miss those times.

All of these costuming and set details affect purists like me deeply. That’s why Phase II will be the better Trek than this movie. Face it, Abrams has paid lip service to the canon to appease the older fans. I will eventually see the movie despite my misgivings.

I can only hope that the new movie reaches a new generation who could care less about these details and inspire them to live in harmony with their fellow humans, get enthused about science, and respect the diversity so apparent in their world while fighting the hate, fear and bigotry that remain despite the work of good people like Roddenberry.

Anthony Sez: “Personally I am going to go to this movie and try and watch it as a summer blockbuster action movie set in the Star Trek universe.”

For my own part, I don’t care about continuity or canon or any of that stuff … I watch Trek for the characters, the tough decisions and consequences, the inspirational ideas and the miniskirts. And, sometimes, when nobody’s looking and I’m in loose-fitting pants, for the gold midgets.

But if, when we finally see the trailers, the new Trek looks like a “summer blockbuster action movie,” that will sadden me, because Trek, even at its very lowest, loudest, dumpiest and dumbest (I’m looking right at you, Star Trek VI), has always been a cut above “blockbuster action,” even if only in its good intentions. IMO.

^^^^
one of the reasons I dont post that often is that people nitpick everything to death. Of course I don’t want Star Trek to ignore character, nor do I expect it to. I was just saying that I will view the film with an open mind and not be doing a comparison of every element to Memory Alpha as it goes by. I truly believe that some Trek fans my go to this film and miss the forest while they obsess over the trees or the leaves on the trees

But if you consider Trek VI “lowest, loudest, dumpiest, and dumbest” you invalidate everything else that you say. It may not have been the best of the six original crew movies, but to capp on it like that I just don’t get. I think you missed the point of that movie. I found it to be none of the adjectives you used.

#199 …One of the things that always irked me about the TNG era and the use of the holodecks is that we didn’t have a scene where one of the main cast is recreating John Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight, and in the middle of a manual reentry with the retro pack on, is forced to abort the sim because he/she’s been called to the bridge. The punch line being “dammit! Every time I’m just about to get through reentry, something always comes up!” At least one of the command crew should have been a major Astrobuff as a perpetual homage to NASA and the space program.

One of the things that got to me in Star trek, regardless of which Era, was the music. I have heard many types of Genre’s: Baroque, Classical, Jazz, even the Blues. But not once to I ever remember hearing: Country, Rap, Rock and Roll, or variations thereof. The closest they ever came was in “The Way to Eden,” with their song. Can you explain that? Also with ENterprise and “Movie Night,” The movie was always old from the 1930’s.

Anthony Pascale on Saldana’s uniform the small delta shield you are talking about is it on top of her shoulder? You can barely see it. Or are you looking at the big wrinkle on the back of her sleeve that is shaped kind of like the delta shield? Anthony Pascale how about drawing a circle around the delta shield on her uniform so we can see it better?

Oh, and they did have a country singer on TNG. It was in the first season where the Enterprise runs into a ship with people aboard who were in cryogenic freeze. The one guy was a country western singer.

So does that mean when they encounter crewmembers of other ships in the movie, they will have different patterns other than the delta shield in their uniform? As you remember, the Enterprise shield was not adopted as the Starfleet insignia until after their successful 5-year mission. During TOS, every ship and starbase has their own unique insignia.

I acre very much about continuity, myself, so much so that I’ve gone on record as saying that if the result of this movie is something other than the Trekverse we’ve shared for the last few decades (and, yes, I believe that all 5 current series and ten films can and do fit well enough into one fictional universe), they’ll cost themselves a couple of C-notes in lost ticket sales, and that’s just from *me*. And I don’t really care if they explain it away with some time travel hokum or not. Either they preserve general continuity, or they don’t.

But…

I do see it as functioning on two levels. One is what we might call “storytelling canon”, which I’ve been getting the feeling (though of course Bob Orci could correct me if I’m wrong ;) ) will be preserved. Another is “visual canon”, which is pretty likely not to be preserved, especially if one goes down to the detail level of fabric types and individual stitchery. My greater interest is in “storytelling canon” being preserved, since I think practically demands that “visual canon” will have to be at least a bit flexible due to the differences between designing a 1960s TV series and a 2009 feature film ;) , and I can be somewhat forgiving of variations within visual canon. I hope they don’t stray too much, but I surely expect them to do some things differently!

All that said, I really like what this article has to say about the uniforms! It sounds like they’re honoring the original costuming, while also expanding beyond it, and that’s cool in my book. I think it’d be cool to see some variations on the uniforms, as was hinted at first in TMP, and looking a bit at how the uniforms might have evolved over a decade or two in the mid-23rd Century could be a lot of fun, on a visual level. Still, though, I also hope we’re not blinded to appreciating the story that’s being told. :)

So, when will the next trek movie be set in? If Pine is saying that you see the crew come together for the 5 year mission. When will the next one take place? During the 5 year mission? The only one that looks like the orig. is Quinto, how will they get away with making everyone and everything look the same as TOS?

Longer miniskirts sounds like a rather retrograde and socially conservative step. The 60s are just so very over, I guess. Sigh.

I posted a lot about this in the “photoshopped poster” thread so won’t repeat myself, but I stand by the opinion that the original womens’ uniforms worked fine. They’re a design classic and credible. They haven’t aged like most “shiny silver suit” sci-fi costuming of the period. Just MHO of course, but they should’ve stuck with the original one-piece sleeved design, just improved the material and cut for the higher production values/budget/big screen. Many things from TOS have dated horridly; much of the set design, the silly flashy-light computers and so on, but this was something that was fine. Ah well, it’s their film to do as they wish with I guess :)

I don’t agree with the folks who do not like the uniforms that first showed up in TWOK. I thought those were a lot better than the uniforms worn in The Motion Picture and way way better than the goofy uniforms in TNG. But they (TWOK movie uniforms) looked more like dress uniforms than what a crew would wear while on active duty.

Can anyone explain why the slanted black angle on those unifroms from TNG. That made the uniforms look really dumb, to me. I think the uniforms on DS9 and the ones they wore in the later Next Generation films looked a whole lot better than those uniforms in TNG tv show. Just my opinion.

A rejoinder on the question ‘Why Canon, Anyway?’
There are such things as an in-universe perspective and a real world perspective. All those little (or sometimes major) discrepancies have perfectly reasonable real-world explanations, of course (they wanted to make it look cooler, they wanted to save money, etc.). But when you care about canon, that’s usually from an in-universe perspective. And from this perspective canon errors are simply contradictions. And since a contradiction is something which can’t be true, the credibility of the fictional universe suffers. And to some Trekkers -including me- there’s got to be some suspension of disbelief or else there’s no fun. And in addition to that, canon mistakes always create the impression that writers and producers simply don’t care enough about the fictional universe, but if you as a fan love that fictional universe, you hate to see that it’s not properly taken care of.
Well, that’s my answer to question what all that fuzz about canon is about.

This topic is just too entertaining to stay away from…
The uniforms from STTMP just plain sucked. I recall movie critics had a field day, criticizing the “drab, pajamas.” For what it’s worth, I’d bet TWOK uniforms must have pleased Gene, as in his “H. Hornblower” inspirations. Those designs embodied the Naval flair better than any others. I think they looked cool in their own way, even though it’s impossible to imagine how they could have possibly evolved from TOS, or STTMP.

220. NOTBOB
Yup, The later appearance of the TNG uniforms, took a lot of getting used to. Those one piece suits looked silly and every bit as uncomfortable as the male actors described. I also wondered about that slanted black angle.

It always did (and still does) make sense to me that each starship had its own unique mission patch assigned to the crew. Apparently someone felt that’s a bit too much for people to get their minds around…

222 – “And in addition to that, canon mistakes always create the impression that writers and producers simply don’t care enough about the fictional universe, but if you as a fan love that fictional universe, you hate to see that it’s not properly taken care of.”

To be fair, TV production is a tough job, especially with a technically complex series like Trek. I can forgive an occasional error, because the folks who do that sort of work are under incredible pressures. I also think that Trek has done a phenomenal job in maintaining its overall continuity, despite the occasional slip. In a body of work as large as Trek, that’s pretty impressive.

I think it’s hard for some of us, who have spent decades knowing “what it looks like” down to the console layouts and costume stitchery, to reconcile the desire for detail-continuity with the idea that this is the first close look the studio has taken at the era of the 2250s-2260s since TOS was produced. I think episodes like “In a Mirror, Darkly” and fan film series like Exeter and Phase II have shown that the basic designs hold up very well, but I’m biased toward those designs. Will I think the changes that Mr. Abrams and his team have made are suitable for a more modern take on that era? I don’t know. I’ll have to get back to you after I see ’em. ;) But I’m willing to accept a certain level of “reinterpretation”, as long as they’re not pulling a BSG and saying, “From now on, the fictional world you saw before no longer matters.” If Trek is to attract a younger audience, some level of visual evolution may be necessary. The question becomes, what’s the right balance between evolution and fidelity?

223-225 – Gotta admit, I rather liked the TWOK-TUC uniforms, myself. They were a little less “futuristic” than TMP’s, to be sure, but I think they did a good job of looking visually stylish, and they did take into account the reality that those actors were aging and they probably would have had trouble looking good in the TMP-styled uniforms. The other thing I enjoyed in all the films was the hints of different grades of uniforms, the concept that there was a dressier “Class A” and then other “work uniforms”. We didn’t always see that applied as well as we might have liked, but it was neat to be able to see what we saw and extrapolate a bit.

To slackers this is a minor detail, to others this is a major part of canon: During the 5-year mission and before, every individual ship and starbase had their own unique insignia, the Delta shield was unique only to the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701. Upon Kirk’s successful completion of the 5 year mission, Starfleet adopted the delta shield as the insignia for all of Starfleet. This is important because it signifies the importance of that 5 year mission and the crews living legend status. So, knowing part of this movie takes place before the 5 year mission, I will be looking very closely to the insignias used at Starfleet Academy and on the other ships.

i just realised the black undershirt forming the black collar neck and then the over shirt covering makes perfect sense when you consider TWOK uniforms – almost inverted (white/green etc undershirt with collar then red tunic covering)…almost foreshadowing

The Emblem that we came to know represented starfleet in Next Generation and so on, was original only worn by the enterprise crew. There is at least one episode that I can think of to support this. Watch the DOOMSDAY (planet killer) episdoe again. Captain Matt Decker has a diffrent emblem on his uniform. There is also support (I believe) from the offical STAR TREK Technical Manual (I have it… somewhere). So if every crew had a diffrent emblem on there uniform, that would be consistant with what was was shown in the original version of the original series (the original, original).

John From Cincinnati
You just aren’t paying attention so Warning for trolling, you cannot insult other people just because they don’t agree with you. I suggest you find another topic as you cannot seem to debate this one without getting personal.

#235 The Emblem that we came to know represented starfleet in Next Generation and so on, was original only worn by the enterprise crew. There is at least one episode that I can think of to support this. Watch the DOOMSDAY (planet killer) episdoe again. Captain Matt Decker has a diffrent emblem on his uniform. There is also support (I believe) from the offical STAR TREK Technical Manual (I have it… somewhere). So if every crew had a diffrent emblem on there uniform, that would be consistant with what was was shown in the original version of the original series (the original, original).

Also on the ENT episode, “In a Mirror, Darkly,” look at the ones who were wearing “Defiant” uniforms. The insignia on them looks like a boomerang or an arrow pointing to the right, well left from their point of view.

#211 – I don’t mean to answer for Anthony but perhaps you should re-read what it says.. and then click on the colored poster to see what he’s talking about.

Anthony says in the report:

“the colored uniform blouses have small ‘delta shield’ emblems woven into the fabric (this is most apparent on Saldana’s)”

That means the delta shield emblem is a pattern on the blouse (this means there are hundreds of them on the blouse then.) If you click on the larger version of the poster you can see this if you look kinda closely.

234- ““i just realised the black undershirt forming the black collar neck and then the over shirt covering makes perfect sense when you consider TWOK uniforms – almost inverted (white/green etc undershirt with collar then red tunic covering)…almost foreshadowing””

It’s also worth remembering that in TOS they always wore black undershirts under the normal (male) shirt to avoid embarrassing displays of paunch when the shirt rode up, *except* when a shirt was due to be ripped in which case they magically disappeared. :)

You won’t see me spout off for 5 pages on a topic, yet I am warned that I am spamming? Spamming by definition is – a commercial message. Last time I checked, I haven’t been selling anything.

What strikes me as hilarious are people that think of themselves as progressive thinkers are actually the most closed minded about listening to other people’s opinions, and want to silence those who disagree with them.

#159: Fitted black t-shirts are sexy on both men and women! Provided they are in shape of course, but Nimoy certainly was. :)

Okay, I hate getting overly nerdy but…

Some of you say the tunics were two-piece. That is true if you count the undershirt which was hidden from view. (I wouldn’t want to wear velour or nylon without protection from underarm sweat either.) What Bill Theiss said may have been originally intended, but we see a couple episodes where the black collar is clearly attached to the rest of the tunic, so that was either lost in actual filming or may have simply been dropped to avoid continuity problems. The same aforementioned episode which first showed the undershirt (“The Naked Time”) Spock grabs his separate tunic — black collar attached! — and pulls it over. There are several episodes where Kirk does the same. Furthermore, McCoy’s tunic is unzipped in “Miri” for ventilation, and we see his black undershirt’s collar RIGHT NEXT TO the wider ribbed collar of the tunic.

From a personal standpoint, I liked the wide ribbed collars of both the pilots and regular series because they made sense functionally. Space is cold. If they can cut down on heating and save energy, all the better. Sort of like your mother always telling you to just put on a sweater if you’re too cold indoors. :)

#243: That makes sense. The first appearance of that casual tunic pattern was in Charlie X (worn by the title character) in a gold suede or something. Theiss may have just thought it would look good on Shatner and made it of a green fabric.

John from Cincinnati – #215: Unless you can cite a specific canon Starfleet decree about the insignia, this kind of thing can easily be explained with a little retcon. I mean, what if Starfleet generally used the delta shield by default, started toying with other insignia for other ships for some time prior to and during the time of the original 5-year mission, and then abandoned it afterward?

I don’t see this as a proposition characteristic of “slackers” since the matter of insignia usage is not of life and death significance, and institutional organizations are known to make sharp turns in policy on outlying regulations due to shifts in executive power among constituent bureaucracies, etc.

Also, I highly doubt that the microweave pattern is going to be visible in the fabric of the uniforms in the movie itself. It’s probably just a feature of the posters, to get the peeps all worked up (& it’s working well at that).

#249 That makes sense. The first appearance of that casual tunic pattern was in Charlie X (worn by the title character) in a gold suede or something. Theiss may have just thought it would look good on Shatner and made it of a green fabric.

You were going by Airing order, I was going by Production order, which makes more sense continuity wise. Also in case you didn’t notice in that episode, it was a bit of a mistake when they showed him in it. You will notice that he enters the turbolift wearing the yellow shirt, asks to go to the bridge, and then exits the turbolift onto the bridge, wearing the green tunic.

For the new movie: As far as the uniforms, I was really hoping for the green, orange and purple colors as opposed to the blue, red and gold. I also like a more one-piece jumpsuit look, like Buck Rogers.

The Enterprise should have no saucer, it should look more like a star destroyer from Star Wars.

I also think phasers should be called laser blasters. Oh, and lets add a new weapon, a laser sword.

Who’s to say they never had those in TOS? They just never mentioned it or showed it.

Most posters are trying to talk to you, or at lease have a civil discourse.
Relax a bit… I’ve been wound up over things people say here before and have allowed the heat of the moment to get to me. Take a breath and have a little fun discussing stuff..k?

I haven’t been saying everything has to be exactly exactly the same down to the same materials they used back in the 60’s in the clothing and on the sets. That is totally impractical. I am even accepting of logical progressions of thing to be shown in a modern movie, better materials, digital comm panels, metallic walls, etc. What I am concerned about is if the visual changes are so obvious as to cause logical inconsistency questions. I think the actors are going to be fantastic, I think JJ is going to direct a great movie and I bet the writers wrote a great story. My only beef has been it still has to look like Star Trek and it has to look like it fits in the time it is suppose to be taking place. I disagree with most everyone that changing the ranks to be simpler, a metal insignia pin are minor leaves on a tree. I think they will stand out for a lot of fans.Especially in the digital media age we live in and as the movie gets watched over and over again over time. I am more concerned with the interior of the Enterprise looking more like the movie versions than from TOS.

I like to use the “Titanic” comparison. James Cameron went through a lot of exhaustive research to make sure the Titanic ship was accurate in his oscar winning movie. Now, what had Cameron used a modern day Princess Cruises cruise liner instead of the accurate one that was used? Was the story and characters enough for you to get past such a glaring inconsistency? Would you have enjoyed the movie less?

As for the different insignias for different ships; I love the idea, but watch Court Martial one more time. Don’t tell me all those other captains that were being so obnoxious to Kirk in the bar were all from the Enterprise.

Who knows? Maybe Captains got to choose their ship’s patch from a list. And maybe there was only 8 or 9 on that list. Or however many there were They loved the arrowhead design.

#257 sez: “Now, what had Cameron used a modern day Princess Cruises cruise liner instead of the accurate one that was used?”

Almost no-one in the audience would know the difference provided they dressed the sets to look more-or-less period. As a lifetime Titanic-history junkie, I’d have noticed, but as a moviegoer I certainly wouldn’t have minded. I’ve seen several films and TV eps set aboard Titanic that had considerably less accurate sets than a “Princess Cruise” ship with period furniture jammed in, it’s never bothered me in those and it wouldn’t have bothered me in Cameron’s film.

In fact, I found it far more glaring that the movie was conveniently set in all those rooms on Titanic that we have the best surviving photographs of :) As a Titanic materials collector, I could mentally recall nearly every photo used for reference in the film as I’d seen most of them reprinted dozens of times in books over the years … That was a pretty extraordinary coincidence seen from that angle, but it was something to muse on privately, not to complain about. The accuracy didn’t harm the film anymore than comparable inaccuracy would have. It’s just irrelevant detail.

“Was the story and characters enough for you to get past such a glaring inconsistency?”

Of course. It’s a romantic melodrama, entirely about the characters.

This may come as a shock, but you can be expert on something and yet _not_ be pedantic about it. Pedantry doesn’t indicate knowledge and it doesn’t indicate someone who “cares” more. Pedantry comes from the inability or refusal to recognize that knowledge is not equally relevant in every context. Sometimes a detail is just trivia.

“Would you have enjoyed the movie less?”

Not in the least.

And I do think it’s an excellent comparison, by the way … I regard Trek canon as a kind of history, and like any other kind of history, I’m very comfortable with assuming that _every_ dramatic depiction of it is, to some degree, compromised for dramatic purposes. To my own taste, it feels much more real to me to see an inconsisent canon, because that’s the way movies about real history work.

Your tastes clearly differ. That’s okay. There’s no way to be wrong about it; it’s just a show.

You know, before I answer any more questions there’s something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I’ve spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled… y’know… hundreds of miles to be here, I’d just like to say… GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you’re dressed! You’ve turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!

[ a crowd of shocked and dismayed Trekkies…. ]

I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?

[ to “Ears” ] You, you must be almost 30… have you ever kissed a girl?

[ “Ears” hangs his head ]

I didn’t think so! There’s a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn’t watch television! I LIVED! So… move out of your parent’s basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it’s just a TV show dammit, IT’S JUST A TV SHOW!

248. “From a personal standpoint, I liked the wide ribbed collars of both the pilots and regular series because they made sense functionally. Space is cold. If they can cut down on heating and save energy, all the better. Sort of like your mother always telling you to just put on a sweater if you’re too cold indoors. :)”

250. “#248 – you just KNOW Uhura was hiding a space heater under her console!”

In the videos and photos of real space missions, crews seem to wear either jumpsuits, or shorts and T-shirts, but if the onboard power needs to be conserve or the onboard heaters break down, then the crews would certainly want to wear sweaters and use space heaters. The crew of Apollo 13, unfortunately, didn’t have any of those items and had to shiver in their jumpsuits.

By the way, in the TOS episode “Spock’s Brain”, after Kirk and his landing party beam down to Sigma Draconis VI, he orders his men to set their “Suit temperatures at 72″. Although many people would rank this episode as one of the worst in the franchise, it does indicate that a Starfleet uniform has some kind of internal heating system. But whenever Kirk’s uniform gets ripped, we never see tiny wires dangling out, then the heating system is probably based on what we would call nanotechnology today, although not as sophisticated and potentially dangerous as the nanites.

264. Nanotechnological heating systems embedded in the uniforms would certainly explain how various Starfleet officers were able to survive for limited periods of time in subfreezing environments as shown in the TOS episodes “The Enemy Within” and “All Our Yesterdays”, and the TOS movie “The Undiscovered Country”, as well as “Spock’s Brain”. I read that some scenes in the new movie may be filmed in Iceland. If part of the story is set in a subfreezing environment, I wonder if the landing party would beam down in just their duty uniforms.

If this was a movie just for fans, sure. take the detail right down to the oversized painted knobs on some obscure control panel.
But it’s a movie that’s for all audiences and to suspend disbelief they need detail that seems to go beyond 2008’s tech. People are used to high tech in everyday life now. A good example is the iPhone now looks far more advanced than a TOS communicator.
We’ll have to see how well they fit this in with TOS and go from there.

I believe they backed off the Iceland location and filmed them in SoCal.

#268 Eagle

Astro appears to be making observations, not stating canon other than the “Spock’s Brain” thing. It’s still a Movie/TV show and the audience can better relate to characters supposedly in a cold environment wearing a coat than explaining through dialogue and technobabble why they aren’t wearing a coat when it’s so “cold”.
True?

I agree, the Titanic should look like the Titanic in a movie looking back on the Titanic. The Enterprise of TOS, should look like the Enterprise of TOS IF you are doing a movie looking back at TOS.

Having said that, I think the brilliance of the new movie is how they are skewing the timeline. This fact is what lets us, the audience, look at these changes in design and accept it. As we saw in Trials and Tribulation and In a Mirror Darkly, if modern Star Trek has to go back to TOS Star Trek then it must look like TOS to be believable. But an altered timeline gives us the freedom to accept a slightly different look with different actors. It’s a brilliant way to make that leap of logic and get into a whole new Star Trek that is still very familiar.

If this is supposed to take place prior to “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, why are there ANY RED uniforms at all? Since The Cage uniforms and WNMHGB are the same: Blue, Green & Gold, why are there suddenly red uniforms? Did they experiment with red briefly sometime between 2254 and 2264 before the finally introduced it in 2265?

Frankly I prefer the more muted color scheme without the red. The bright red used in TOS was part of an overall design incorporating the same shade into a VERY colorful mix specifically to exploit the emergence of NBC’s new color technology. ST II onward got it right. To the extent red is used a more muted tone like a maroon or rust is preferred.

But the look of The Cage is the most realistic depiction of TOS, which is probably why The Motion Picture looks so much like it. I always hated how future spinoffs continued to use the EXACT same set designs as the original, despite the fact technology has advanced so far past it.

But seriously, bright RED uniforms? I can only hope the set doesn’t incorporate the color similarly to TOS, which is also incorrect for the time period this film is supposed to cover.

I believe we’ve been shown so little of the movie to this point exactly because the production design and the liberties they’ve taken are the most controversial part. If the reaction to the few scraps we’ve seen is this ridiculous, wait until we see more. The way it sounds so far, the uniforms are the part of the look that comes closest to the original … from there the changes get farther away from what we’ve known.

As Alex Rosenzweig noted, the movie will raise the question of whether it will really belong in the continuity of the single universe of which all the series and movies are of a piece. It could be a great story, but for those fans who see the look as much a part of that universe as the story, this new movie really could disappoint.

Let me just clarify … I’m using canon to complain about the Art Direction, but it would disappoint me for all the same reasons if Abrams was using canon to justify his choices. Red, Blue and Lime Green (yes William Ware Theiss is on record confirming this), worked well in the 1960s. Indeed it is that rich red shirt in part that makes Scotty one of my favorites and why I always chose engineering as my favorite occupation in Starfleet.

But red does something completely different on film which is why we’ve NEVER seen it in ANY star trek movie. The uniforms in II-VI are hardly red and TNG series use a muted shade that leans toward burgundy and even that’s mostly eliminated after the first Generations film. Shades of blue, green and gold blend well and look good on film, while red calls attention to itself in a big way. Look at I am Legend, in a very real coloured New York, Will Smith comes speeding through the city streets in a bright red sportscar and it’s all you see. An otherwise cinematic set peppered with bright red is going to pull the eye wherever it shows up (made even worse by todays HD technology) – which is unfortunately away form the weakest color: yellow, that the main character wears. At least green held it’s own which is why they made Shatner’s wrap-around tunic defiantly green: it was green to set him apart from the washed out yellow-looking uniforms and a wrap-around to accommodate Shatner’s ever-changing waistline. It also had a slight “V” shape in the front which prevented a straight waistline that highlighted any weight-gain.

So hopefully Abrams and his art directors have employed basic film-school 101 techniques and avoided a truly bright red colour throughout the film. It looked and worked fine in TOS, but has no place in modern filmmaking. The Cage looked and still does look great – it holds up great and is in many ways completely believable by today’s standards because of that. Any cinematic homage to the original should have taken a note from that pilot. The fact this film is promoted as re-boot and an opportunity to attract a wide-audience outside of the established Trek fan-base is reason enough to leave any canon that does not work in modern films behind and all the better if you can use canon to justify it as well.

The Cage uniforms were much closer to this. The green (gold) shirts appear much more olive than the lime-green of TOS and the division jumpsuits are definitely olive-coloured. The blue is definitely lighter than AirForce uniforms, but the khaki is right on.

Whereas the primary pixel colours in TV are: Red, Green & Blue.

Why Theiss chose lime-green is beyond me and even more interesting is why this argument wasn’t put to bed long ago by some original pre-production notes in Rodenberry’s own hand that specify the division colors. Of what there is no argument is that green has been there since the beginning.

We are going to be shown a period in time THAT WE HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. We can’t say that something is right or wrong for that time, since we have no previous knowledge of it.

When we saw the hologram of the lateJack Crusher in TNG, he was wearing a uniform that was something between the films and TNG. Was that conflicting with canon? No! Because WE HAD NEVER SEEN THAT TIME PERIOD BEFORE.

268. “#265: then Why did they have to wear coats in the movies and beyond?”

In the TOS episodes “The Enemy Within” and “All Our Yesterdays”, the TOS movie “The Undiscovered Country”, and the VOY episode “Timeless”, as well as “Spock’s Brain”, the embedded heating systems of the uniforms are supplemented with other sources of heat: phaser-heated rocks, blankets, furs, and surival gear, and could be supplemented with thermal heaters. This indicates that the uniforms have a limited heating capability.

By the way, the blankets are rather flimsy and thin, though; so presumably, they are also embedded with nanotechnological heating systems, making them high-tech electric blankets. However, in “The Enemy Within”, Spock says the malfunctioning transporters rendered the thermal heaters inoperative. The same thing probably happened to the blankets, at least with the active heating components.

187. “Since Star Trek is marketed as the “history of the future” the franchise is more relegated to the confines of canon, accuracy, continuity and details…Star Trek is promoted in the upcoming trailer [which] airs clips of man’s Apollo and Mercury programs, as though, Star Trek is an extension of reality, of the real universe that we know.”

One of the themes in science fiction is, in fact, called “future history”. Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” and Olaf Stapledon’s “Last and First Men” series are examples of future histories. Because of Star Trek’s vast timeline, Star Trek certainly qualifies as a future history. A movie, TV episode, or book set in this future history could be thought of as an historical or period piece, albeit a future historical or period piece. In stories set in past history, stories like “John Adams”, “Flag of Our Fathers”, “Letters from Iwo Jima”, and of course, “Titanic”, and the Star Trek-like, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”, the more accurate the details are, the more authentic the feel. The same could be true for a story set in a future history.

Another science fiction theme that Star Trek might qualify for is “Alternate History”, since the Eugenic Wars and the DY-100, Nomad, Voyager 6, and cryogenic satellite programs happened in Star Trek’s history, but not in our history – unless these events were misdated*, or occurred in alternate histories, and information about the events somehow contaminated our/Star Trek’s history. Star Trek might also qualify as a combination “Future Alternate History” (but not an “Alternate Future History”, which is the theme of many individual episodes and the TNG movie “First Contact”).

* For instance: Since “Space Seed” and “The Wrath of Khan” occur in the 23rd Century, Khan would have been in power in the 21st century (Kirk tells Khan that the latter man has been asleep for two centuries, and Khan later tells Terrell that he himself ruled over millions 200 years before the latter man was born). However, since he was an autocrat, he could have created a new calendar that was missing several decades from the current calendar. This would also place the Eugenics Wars, which Spock describes in “Space Seed” as the last of the world wars, in the same time period as the Third World War that several episodes and movies mention.

However, in regards to your sarcastic replies to my retcon proposal vis-a-vis the delta shield logo, none of them hold water, in my opinion, because these are features of Star Trek that could not be easily retconned.

I was just trying to be helpful, anyway, not to “target” you. I guess if you’re in the mood to play the beleaguered “true believer” there is nothing any of us can do to stop you….

Trek Nerd Central – do you know how much money is on the line in the textile industry!? There are people’s lives who are made and destroyed everyday in that industry and millions of poorly paid garment workers around the world whose very livelihood depend on whether a designer picks fabric “A” or “B”. Just sayin’. ;-)

According to the orginal series costume designer William Theiss, the original StarFleet colors were Green, Blue, Tan (Cage/Where No man)

Then because color TV’s were taking off, NBC wanted more color in the show and the bridge/interiors had orange/red added and the crew uniforms were red, blue and lime green which looks gold onscreen. Note Kirk’s dress uniform and casual wraparound are green becuase they are made of different materials.

When Theiss creayted the jumpsuits for TNG he thought that Gold wasn’t a heroic color so changed the command to wine, science blue and support mustard. Good thing he didn’t get his way in which he wanted the sides of the abdomen exposed.

Trek Nerd Central – LOL, I just happened to be watching coverage of the Bejing Olympics today and noted he tens of thousands of custom athletic shirts the Chinese were sporting and thinking how little it must have cost the Chinese government since China is already making most of the polyester athletic shirts in the world today.

#286. Larry, I’d love to know where you read that … I looked all over for a source of Theiss talking about The Cage & WNMHGB … in the process I found the interview about the lime green confirmation of the series … but precious little about the pilots. I assumed the tan tops were gold until I realized they were intended to mirror military colors of the time. If you look at The Cage, the green, blue and tan are used as the transporter up-lights as well and I thought, how do you make a tan light, must be gold, but if you look, it’s pretty tan-looking.

I think I read the same Theiss interview about gold not being heroic, but I also read that Stewart looked awful in gold, elsewhere.

291. “…I never understood that episode….I guess all the shuttlecrafts were broke too.”

Fans have, for years, been trying to explain why Kirk does not send down a shuttlecraft to rescue the landing party. Personally, I doubt all of the shuttlecraft on an efficiently-run starship like the Enterprise can be broken at the same time, unless a recent battle damaged them. I think the easiest answer is that the atmosphere of the planet became too turbulent for the shuttlecraft to fly through; in the ENT episode “Strange New World”, Archer’s shuttlepod cannot land for this reason (this episode has a transporter problem, too; I wonder if its writers were trying to explain the TOS episode).

Yeah, if a shuttlecraft rescued the landing party. Still, the writers of the TOS episode could’ve just added a line that wouldn’t have killed the plot, something like “Captain, the shuttlecraft can’t land because of intense atmospheric turbulence. They’re turning back.” or “Captain, the shuttlecraft sustained damage from intense atmospheric turbulence. They’re turning back.”

294. By the way, I forgot to mention the emergency shelters that McCoy mentions in the TOS episode “Devil in the Dark”. The doctor says that they’re made of thermal concrete, which are mostly silicon. Beaming one of these shelters down wouldn’t have killed the plot, but it would’ve reduced the plot’s urgency.

Nevertheless, why doesn’t Kirk have a shelter beamed down anyway, or does he? Perhaps, the transporter malfunction weakens the silicon material in the shelter. This might be why the thermal heaters failed: If they have silicon components, then the malfunction may have damaged these components. And since silicon is in certain ways similar to carbon, which is what Kirk and the alien dog are made of, then the transporter damaging silicon materials makes even more sense.

269. “I believe they backed off the Iceland location and filmed them in SoCal.”

Okay, thank you for the information.

“Astro appears to be making observations, not stating canon other than the “Spock’s Brain” thing. It’s still a Movie/TV show and the audience can better relate to characters supposedly in a cold environment wearing a coat than explaining through dialogue and technobabble why they aren’t wearing a coat when it’s so “cold”.
True?”

True, I am making observations and stating canon that indicate that the uniforms have embedded temperature control, but I am also drawing a conclusion about the nature of the temperature control. Yes, the audience can better relate to characters wearing coats in a cold environment, if the movie or show is set in the present or the past. However, if they can relate to characters in a movie or show set in the future doing fantastical things like firing phasers that do not recoil, teleporting from place to place, and time traveling to the past without explanation, then they should be able to relate to characters wearing pajama-like clothing in a cold environment (at least for a limited period) without explanation. Sometimes, though, explanations might be necessary, but only if they are integral to the story, even in a contemporary story in which the Chukchi of Siberia have to teach Arctic survivial skills to a stranded American.

94. “If you can get over…Khan telling Terrell and Checkov that 200 years ago he was a Prince…with power over millions (despite te film opening with “In the 23rd Century”), then surely you can get over [Bad Robot wisely choosing to exercise a bit of creative license in using the more familiar style].”

In my note at the end of 281, I attempted to explain what Khan told Terrell and Chekov: being an autocrat, Khan created a new calendar that was missing several decades. That is, he started it several decades into the A.D. 1st century of our calendar.

I think the delta shield has become Star Trek to most people as well as the shield for Star Fleet to most fans. So have everyone wear the delta shield on all star ships. It got started as soon as Star Trek went to the movies.

294. Astrophysicophile, your need for an explanation is exactly the reason the Star Trek franchise has become the mess it has. The Sci-Fi writers are so eager to solve every dilemma the story is faced with that from TNG onward, the franchise is so filled with non-sensical techno-jargon as to drive both fans and novices alike away from otherwise powerful stories. And the characters are all so sober about it – like they all have degrees in astro-physics or something and can fully understand the explanations being vomited forth like a Shakespeare soliloquy. Meanwhile there are visual production continuity errors that are far worse than a made up justification for a particular course of action.

That’s why I love Stargate SG-1. Sometimes, they just shut Samantha Carter up and tell her to get to the point without all the details. They make no bones about it … nobody cares, just do it.

You seriously miss the point of a story when you have to obsess about why they didn’t just do A, B or C, when the reality is the story moves much faster when we assume they had a reason they couldn’t use a resource otherwise available to them. Yes it would be cleaner, but do you really need it? Frankly I never really thought about it, until I came across it on a forum somewhere. What the techno-babble problem has created is a debate over whether the writer’s explanation is good enough. I mean seriously where does it stop? You start worrying about that and it takes you completely out of the episode. I’d opt for just leaving all that crap out of the episode and allow the audience to watch the story an put the burden on them to assume the characters had done everything they could when making an on-camera decision. Better to worry about it after the story ends than to call attention to itself in the middle of the show. With limited broadcast time, I would much rather see a relationship enhanced with additional dialogue than some lame-explanation only there to service the OCD fans.

In TOS, the command tunics were green not gold. Kirk’s wrap arounds were darker shades of green, the first more olive while the second was more a kelly green. The actual tunics (such as Sulu and Chekov’s) were in a light green Uhura wore this green as well in the first few regular episodes filmed.

299. “Astrophysicophile, your need for an explanation is exactly the reason the Star Trek franchise has become the mess it has…”

Other than the one time I did ask the Okudas for an explanation of a discrepancy in the Star Trek chronology in their publications, I generally do not need explanations within the movies and shows. If you reread my posts, you can see that I prefer to explain discrepancies or mysteries myself. Although I doubt that my one question to the Okudas was the sole reason for the mess, I do agree that it contributed to the mess. And I agree with your other statements here.

“That’s why I love Stargate SG-1. Sometimes, they just shut Samantha Carter up and tell her to get to the point without all the details. They make no bones about it … nobody cares, just do it.”

I love Stargate, too, but it is a relatively newer franchise, so I think that it too will eventually accumulate an influential percentage of fans who need explanations. Actually, the other Star Trek characters would say the same thing to Spock and Data, but eventually, in the later shows, many of human characters also started talking like Spock and Data.

“You seriously miss the point of a story when you have to obsess about why they didn’t just do A, B or C, when the reality is the story moves much faster when we assume they had a reason they couldn’t use a resource otherwise available to them. Yes it would be cleaner, but do you really need it?…I would much rather see a relationship enhanced with additional dialogue than some lame-explanation only there to service the OCD fans.”

Actually, I do get the point of a story when I watch it, but after watching it many times over many years, I might begin to notice discrepancies and mysteries, and I attempt to explain them. I agree with your other statements here, though. In 296, I said some of the same things. In fact, your words echo what Gene Roddenberry said in “The Making of Star Trek”, something to effect that if a policeman does not need to explain how his .38 works, then the captain does not to do the same for his phaser.

Still, the need to know how phasers, as well as antigravity, cloaking devices, force fields, uniform temperature controls, transporters, tricorders, and warp drives work may inspire people to study science and engineering and maybe even develop these technologies. According to the Okudas, Stephen Hawking said, perhaps jokingly, that he is still working on the warp drive, but he may have been inspired to work on principles that may eventually contribute to the development of a real warp drive generations from now.

I don’t know if anyone covered this in the 300+ posts above, but for those asking near the beginning about the Enterprise assignment patch, evidence* suggests that they are ignoring it and using the delta logo for all Starfleet ships and stations. Apparently Starfleet decided to stop using assignment patches (as they did during ENT) for the period this movie covers, only to use them again for TOS, TAS and TMP. And then to get rid of them by TWoK. Yeah.

* The spy photos showed the Enterprise delta patch on banners/lamp posts and Starfleet Academy, as well as on the uniforms of a Starfleet mining crew. So unless the Academy was honouring the Enterprise that day and the mining crew are from the NCC-1701, it’s pretty likely that Abrams and the gang are using the ol’ retcon pen.

BTW – I saw The Mummy (3) over the weekend (terrible), but one scene in particular caught my eye – up in the snow covered mountains, Maria Bello wears a bright red parka, the only bright red thing in the scene. Every time she’s in the frame my eye went straight to her, even though she was often not the focus of the scene. Very distracting. Hope Abram’s didn’t make the same mistake with the support division and art direction, reboot or not.

yeah…good idea guys..lets make carbon copies down to the last bit of stiching on on the GAWD AWFUL 60’s vision of future fasion. better yet just CG in the new actors into clips fromTOS thats painstakingly edited to make a Forrest Gump style story that can only be edited by the top 20 losers who have nothing better do with their lives a.k.a- trekies.. that would be an awesome movie!! LOL now throw down that rope ladder so the rest of the sci fi wolrd can get in to and take over you club… ohh wait.. that already happend

I hate the original series uniforms. They look ridiculous. That aside, I loved the stories and the character interactions. For the context of that time they fit well together. When They made Star Trek The Motion Picture made some improvements. My personal favorite uniform designs are from The Wrath of Khan. That for me are classic. I hope over time they move towards that design or its in part in the new movie.

I have to say I’m disappointed. You may win over old trekkies maybe but not new ones if the costumes look silly. I’m not one of those people who are locked into the 60’s vision of the future.

[…] but those were ’stylized’ and it made it harder to see the uniforms. As reported in the TrekMovie Uniform Spoilers article from July, the new bridge uniform shirts are actually in two parts. There is a grey/black […]

Women going into battle on a starship in miniskirts? This speaks volumes about sexist attitude toward women, doesn’t it? I am hoping that the red mini-skirted woman in the pic on the bridge causes OUTRAGE among sci-fi fans who want to see a smart future presented, not eye candy for teen boys.

Personal, I thought number 1 in the pilot was the sexiest women in the Star Trek universe (and she wore pants and carried a phaser). Geeze, back in the pilot all the women were armed and ready to roll in pants.